KARACHI, Aug 1: Thousands of telephone consumers in residential, commercial and industrial areas have been suffering a lot, as PTCL was unable to overcome its growing landline network problems in the wake of rains of Monday and Tuesday.

Complaints about telephones faults, including their going dead, creating noises or causing cross talks had increased significantly. The number of complaints received on Tuesday in Karachi alone was 15,000, claimed a telecom source.

Subscribers hooked with Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, New Karachi, Defence, Clifton, North Karachi, Azizabad, North Karachi, airport, PECHS, Nazimabad figured large among complainants.

Telecom personnel held the ongoing road communication development activities in the city responsible for the increase in the faults. Fault level is abnormal after rain and it will take a couple of days, provided it did not rain further, commented another telecom official in the old areas of the city.

It was learnt that the number of complaints was on lower side in STR-II. However, some major problems in Defence, Clifton and old Karachi areas kept the region’s telecom officials under immense pressure.

Central telephone exchange, which feeds the commercial offices, banks and members of the Karachi Stock Exchange, recorded over 2,300 complaints on Tuesday.

During the last couple of days, the accumulated number of complaints at all exchanges of the city, which are categorized in STR-II and STR-III, remained around 50,000, the source added.

Flooding of roads was cited as main source of inconvenience for damage controlling staff. “We have already sizable complaints about dead telephones in Clifton, but the ill-advised action of releasing rainwater accumulated in KPT underpass in the vicinity doubled our problem,” claimed a field staff.

A source said that Azizabad exchange, which was already in depression following the start of development work on Sohrab Goth flyover and underpass project, landed in trouble due to rains as number of faulty telephone cases soared up to 4,000 on Tuesday.

Talking to Dawn, the PTCL executive vice-president (operation), Nafees Siddiqui, said that the number of complaints was within control and complaints would be cleared within two or three days. He said that about 8,000 complaints throughout the city were received on Monday, while number of total accumulated complaints could be fixed around 25,000. He said that the problem increased in the wake of inundation of roads and streets, particularly in areas where paper coated cables were used underground.